I am furthering the research of thrillers by conducting a questionnaire. We already have a good idea of who we think our target audience is but the purpose of the questionnaire is to find out if our thriller is aimed at the correct target audience and to see what the participants want to see in a thriller (acting as a sample of the rest of society’s opinion). I have handed out thirty questionnaires to a selection of the public in order to get suitable results.
Questionnaire:
Results:
Questionnaire:
1. What is your gender?
Male Female2. What is your age?
15-20 21-25 26-30 31+3. Would you prefer the victim to be a man or a woman?
Man Woman4. Would you prefer the villain to be a man or a woman?
Man Women5. What emotion do you want when watching a thriller?
Suspense Shock Relief Happy ending Other-________6. What type of thriller do you like?
Action Psychological Erotic Sci-Fi Romantic Other-_______7. What type of music do you like?
Heavy Metal Rock Pop Classical Other-________8. What kind of instruments do you like in the background of thriller films?
Piano Guitar Drum Violin Trumpet Other-________9. What is your favourite thriller movie?
_____________________________________________10. On a scale of 1-10 how gory do you prefer thrillers to be?
__________11. Where do you think the location of a thriller should be set?
Cellar Forrest Field House Other-__________12. Do you think the location should be in one place or change throughout the film?
Yes No13. What actor do you think should be casted the leading role of a thriller?
________________________________________________14. Do you prefer films from the victim’s or the villain’s point of view?
Victim Villain15. Would you prefer to have well known actors or new faces in a film?
Well known New faces16. Do you think thrillers should have any romance in them?
Yes No17. What font do you prefer out of the below options?
Thriller Thriller Thriller Thriller18. What type of character would you prefer the villain to be?
Hit-man Psychotic Police Criminal Other-_________19. Do you like plot twists?
Yes No20. Would you prefer the villain to live or die?
Live DieResults:
Question One: Gender
This graph shows the number of participants and their gender. As you can see from the graph, there were 30 questionnaires distributed and the majority of participants were female – 16 female and 14 male. Having the proportion of female and male fairly even will give a good, near enough equal range of opinions and we will be able to see which gender prefer which type of thrillers etc and will therefore be able to find a target audience for our thriller movie. This means that the percentage of males likely to watch thrillers is going to generally be larger than the percentage of female viewers; this proves that there is a majority of male to female, but if I had tested an equal amount of male and female them maybe the results would have differed to make it more of a valid test because the respondents would have an equal opinion of male and female, however this may not have made the test valid as there could be more male than female in this population. Being able to know that more males are likely to want to watch a thriller rather than females we can take into account the males opinions more directly, as they will be the ones watching it, meaning we could use this information to give the males what they want from a thriller.
Question Two: Age
This question is a closed question which shows the comparison of different age groups who took this questionnaire. The graph shows that the majority of our participants were between the ages 15-20 because 25 out of 30 were between these ages. Knowing the age groups of our participants will help us recognise the target audience for thriller films. However, this may not be accurate as most of the questionnaires were handed out around a college, meaning it was bias towards the younger population, giving this outcome. Along with showing the most favourable age group to watch a thriller, it shows that every age group was represented. On the other hand, it was not an accurate representation of all age groups even though all the age groups were covered and had at least one person filling in the questionnaire from each group because the age groups didn’t all have the same amount of respondents. On the plus side, this will help us to see what this age group prefers and it may also prove that age doesn’t really effect peoples’ opinions and preferences of thrillers because our results were very varied even with the age group favouring the 15-20s. The reason we chose to hand out our questionnaires mainly to a younger percentage of the public rather than the older was because the characters in our thriller were planned to be in their early twenties and we felt that people around this age group would be more likely to be able to relate to it.
Question Three: Preference of the Victim’s Gender
This graph shows the proportion of male to female preference of the victim’s gender the participants would rather have in a thriller movie. The pie chart shows that the majority of participants voted the victim to be a female as oppose to a male. The percentage of participants that preferred the victim to be a woman was 58% and the percentage for a man was 42%. After looking at these results we can decide whether we would want to risk having a male victim or not, however, with it being a close vote we could still have a good chance of pleasing the audience with a male victim. In our thriller we have decided upon having both a male and a female victim, however, it is only revealed part way through that the male is in fact a victim as oppose to a villain.
Question Four: Preference of the Villain's Gender
This question was asking the participants whether they preferred a male or a female villain. The graph shows that the majority of the people who participated in our questionnaire had the preference of a male villain. We, as a group believe that the public want the villain to be a male because they are stronger, masculine and manipulative. Most thrillers have a tendency to have a male villain so we are sticking to the stereotypical villain to please the audience.
Question number five asked the participants what type of emotion they like to feel when watching a thriller movie. This graph shows that the majority of the public who we questioned upon the question of which emotion they like to feel when watching a thriller film would rather feel suspension rather than shock; this is because they like the anticipation whilst watching a movie. Some, however, did say that they like to feel shock, relief and ‘other’ but only one person, out of the thirty participants, wanted a happy ending. This suggests that they wanted a cliff hanger ending making you question different possibilities or an ending in which the victim in fact suffers and is not victorious and the villain gets away with their deeds.
Question six was asking the participants what type of thrillers they prefer. Some people chose more than one response which, in conclusion, affected the outcome of the graph. However, it could suggest a mixture of sub genres. This graph shows that the public would prefer a Psychological thriller rather than the other types of sub genres often associated with thrillers. Two out of thirty preferred it to be Sci-fi or other and five out of thirty preferred romance. This proves that the viewers prefer it to Psychological which will give the film a bit of a twist and it will make the viewers think about what’s going to happen/ what’s going on throughout the film.
Music in a film has a great impact upon the emtions and feelings that the audience get whilst watching it, it shows the mood of the characters within it. We asked thirty people what type of music they prefer in the background thriller films because we felt it was a relevent question for the creating of our own. The majority of the participents chose pop music and then rock music. We could take this into consideration and use it in our film to create either a casual mood by having quite an up beat rhymth or even a slow one to create emotion. Rock music could be used in our thriller when action is taking place, or when someone is being chased. It will create tension whilst the character is in distress.
As well as music instruments are also an important part of a film as this also creates a mood depending on what instrument you use and how fast you make the tempo so we asked the participants which instrument they feel is appropriate for in the background of a thriller. The violin was the most popular as you can use it in so many different ways, you can use it slowly but you can also use it so it has a fast tempo, a drum was also popular because it is loud and can be used to express the anger in the actors/actresses.
We asked the participants the open question of which was their favourite thriller film. Some of the participants got confused between a thriller and a horror film which impacted our results as some of the responses weren't relevant. We knew that some people would get the two genres mixed up so we gave examples of thrillers; however, some of the participants just chose the examples instead of thinking of their own. This made the results bias to the examples given. Other participants didn't take the questionnaire seriously, therefore they put irrelevant answers. We gave the example of Jaws and Seven, and these were the most popular responses, Seven being the one with the most votes. We could use the results of this question and get ideas from these films to put into our own, in hope to make our film more appealing to the audience.
We asked the participants what level they like the gore in thrillers to be at. The majority of the votes where in the middle of the one to ten scale. We chose to do this question as a closed scale where the participant would simily state the level on a scale of one to ten because it gives a rough idea of what the audience prefer. Moreover, if it were to have been an open question we would have got different opinions, and some words that people use may mean different things to different people so having it on a scale is more suitable. This gives us an idea of the story line for our thriller and an idea of what the audience will actually see. We could suggest that gory violence is occuring but only portray the noise of the event, or the shadows for instance. That way the audience don't actually have to see the incident and the rating can still be a fifteen.
The next question we asked on the questionnaire was where the participants thought the location should be in the thriller. Some respondants chose more than one location, this means that they think it should change throughout or that they thought either would be a good destination. As the graph shows, the location was chosen to be in a house, this could possibly be because it makes the location more personal to the victim or the villain, and we can get to know them more by looking at the surroundings they live in. The idea of the thriller being set in a forest was also a popular response, we as a group believe this is because that forests are dark and out of the way, making them more of a vulnerable area to be in, creating suspense and tension. The audience is most likely to anticipate that something bad is going to happen, we could then use this feeling of anticipation to either make something bad happen or to fool the audience by making something bad happen at a later point in the film.
The results we gathered portrayed that the respondants had similar balanced thoughts on this question so it was close with only 5 votes between them. As the results show, the majoirty of the participants wanted the setting to change instead of staying in the same place. The reason they may have chosen this could perhaps be that the same location would become boring. Other thrillers have a tendancy to change frequenty, keeping the action going and sticking to the idea that you're more vulnerable in a place you are alien to.
We asked the participants which actor they would like to star in our thriller, as this is an open question we got lots of different responses, however, a lot appeared to be similar. The graph below shows the main responses given. Leonardo DiCaprio was the most popular with the respondants, this is possibly because he is good looking so will appeal to the female population and because he is a very good actor and already stars in many largely known thrillers. Morgan Freeman was also as popular because he is older and wiser; he is also a good actor and has been in a lot of thrillers such as ‘se7en,' which is also one of the films we listed when we asked what the participant's favourite thrillers were.
The next question we asked was whose point of view the participants would like the film to be in, either the victim's or the villain's. There wasn't a massive difference between the two final outcomes but the majority chose for it to be from the villain's point of view. Even though there wasn’t much of a difference between the two answers but the majority wanted it be in the villain’s point of view. Due to the fact that most thrillers are in the eyes of the victim and would be a change to see it through the villain’s point of view.
This graph shows the whether the participants would prefer to have a welknown actor or a new one in our thriller. As the results show that the participants would like to see well known faces in our thriller. It was a close set of results as there were only a few votes separating them. Having new faces could give the audience a chance to see a different acting style and they may find someone who suits the role better. However, having well known faces may attract the audience to watch the film as they may like the actors, and they could connect more with them.
We asked participants if they would like any romance in thrillers they watch, we asked this so we could decide upon a character relationship in our thriller. The majority chose ‘yes’, however, it was a close vote so we could go with either yes or no for romance within our thriller. Participants may have chosen this so they could either relate to the characters more, or perhaps because it gives another aspect to the film. Characters can be made more vulnerable by creating feelings between them, almost as if having a relationship with other characters is their weakness. This could help us develop ideas towards our thriller and the outcome of the events we choose. For example, the partner of the main character could be an easy target for the villain.
This graph shows the different responses that the participants gave to the question of which font could be used in the opening credits of our thriller. The majority of the respondents chose font number 2. The reason we asked this question was so we could select a suitable font to present the credits in our thriller, in hoping that the audience may be drawn in by it and it can give an idea and foreshadow later events in the film. We asked the participants which font they preferred out of the possible options (Font type: Font 1, Font 2, Font 3, Font 4). The majority of the participants preferred the font type 2 which is ‘chiller.’ The reason we asked this question was to find out what type of font would look good on the opening credits of our thriller. We could take both font type 2 and 4 and have one as the credits and one as the title, these decisions can be made now we have the opinion of the potential viewers.
Question Eighteen: Character Type
This graph shows how many participants preferred each of the following character types, hit man, psycho, police, criminal or other. Below the graph shows that the majority of them chose a psychotic character over any of the others as it had 18 votes out of 30. The next most popular, with 6 votes, was a hit man. This will help us to decide if in our thriller the characters of our choice would be appreciated or not. After looking at these results, I think that the hit man character is likely to have a good chance of pleasing the audience.
We asked participants whether or not they like plot twists in thrillers. We asked this because we wanted to know what kind of storyline we could use in our thriller, the idea of a plot twist could make the thriller into a psychological thriller, creating more questions in the audience's mind which we think would make it a more interesting film. The thirty participants who took our questionnaire also agreed with us as all of them voted 'yes' to plot twists. With these results we can now decide what kind of plot twist we would like to apply in our thriller as it will more than likely be accepted by the audience. The plot twist we decided upon in our thriller is to have the victim kill the villain and they get a prison sentence for it, which also creates an unjustified aspect to the film.
The graph below shows the response the participants gave to the question 'Would you prefer the villain to live or die?' The majority of the votes went to 'live.' We could make the villain live which would still leave behind a scary element behind after watching the film, because the villain is still out there. Not killing off the villain allows a squeal to the film, the audience may want this. The reason we asked this question was so we could decide whether to kill off the villain. We considered him dying in the film so we could have a plot twist. As the vote was fairly close, we decided upon killing the villain, however, it is the victim that kills him which gives the plot twist element to the film.
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